Carl Begai

The great thing about having my own website is that I’m able to say what I like. Within reason of course, but the bottom line is I’m able to step away from the neutral ground of a professional environment like BW&BK. Not that I’m planning on being amateurish or infantile; I just figured I’d offer up a few items for your consideration that I find interesting and worthwhile. The curious and open-minded should read on, folks looking for illegal downloads and tabloid fodder should click here.

First off, the eternally sexy BW&BK family has posted the Best Of 2009 list in a nifty online flipbook. It’s the annual writer rundown of Top 20 cool albums, Top 5 pieces of crap, Top 5 shows, and predictions for 2010. Definitely worth reading if you’re into seeing what actually fuels the minds and souls of those of us behind-the-scenes. And for the record, yes, I really did put Daniel Merriweather down as one my fave shows from last year.
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I recently caught up with guitarist / producer Fredrik Nordström, who continues to slug it out with his band Dream Evil in between production jobs. Always a fun interview, we recently got the chance to play catch-up and discuss the band’s new record In The Night. I also asked him about his new and rather unique stage name, Ritchie Rainbow, which fits if you know the man’s warped sense of humour. An excerpt is available below.

Nordström: “I think many people are like me when they listen to music; they don’t give a lot of attention to the lyrics. I mean, on this album we have ‘The Ballad’, and I’ve played it for people and they don’t laugh because they don’t understand that we did it in fun. People don’t understand that sometimes we do this just to have a fucking laugh. This is something in the band, though, where we don’t do funny lyrics on purpose. They just come out that way. For example, I wrote all the music and vocal melodies for ‘The Ballad’ and I brought it to the guys saying that I thought it had hit potential, then gave it to Niklas so he could write the lyrics, and what you hear is what he came up with. I was laughing my ass off.”

As for adopting stage names, Nordström explains:
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